Marine-engine-operation indicator



J. McRAE.

MARINE ENGINE OPERATION INDICATOR.

APPLICATION FILED JULY 25. 1919.

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a s C 13. m f/ ZFae JOHN MORAE, OF VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA.

MARINE-ENGINE-OPERATION INDICATOR.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented July 6, 1920.

Application filed July 25, 1919. Serial No. 313,231.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN MoRAE, a subject of the King of Great Britain, and a resident of the city of Vancouver, in the Province of British Columbia, Canada, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Marine-Engine-Operation Indicators, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to indicating devices associated with the operation of marine engines, and the object of my invention is to provide a simple device the use of which will prevent mistakes in such operation.

I attain this object by the construction illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which Figure 1 is a diagrammatic view illustrating the practical application of my invention.

Fig. 2 is a detail view of the indicator.

Similarfigures of reference indicate similar part throughout the views.

In operating marine engines it sometimes happens that the engineer instead of carrying out the order received from the bridge, will do exactly the opposite, that is instead of putting the engine full speed ahead, for instance, in response to the order for full speed, he will put the engines full speed aster-n, or vice versa, with consequent damage if the vessel is beingworked into dock, a lock, or any close space. The possibility of such such mistakes is readily understood by those skilled in the art, as, while a transmitter is provided in the engine room for indicating the respective signals to the engineer which he has to operate after each signal so as to repeat the same back to the bridge, it soon becomes a mere mechanical act on the part of the engineer to actuate the transmitter handle without paying such attention to the indicated signal as will impress it unmistakably on his brain, as in most cases the transmitter is behind him so that he has to turn his back to it to movethe engine operating levers to carry out the order.

In order to eliminate the possibility of such mistakes and to provide a sign, as it were, which will always be. in view of the engineer when operating the reversing lever, I mount on the engine column 1 adjacent the handle 2 of the reversing lever 3 a rotatable disk 4: provided with a pointer 5 from the end of which depends a short chain 6 to the free end of which is preferably secured a point 7 in the shape of an arrow. Around the periphery of this disk 4, which is grooved, is passed an endless wire or chain 8 which also passes around a similar disk 9 mounted on the operating handle shaft 10 of the bridge transmitter 11 and the arrangement is such that when the bridge transmitter handle is at Stop, that is, in mid position, and also the reversing lever 3, the pointer 5 will be vertical, as shown in Fig. l, but when the bridge transmitter handle is at F 1111 ahead or Full a'stern as the case may be, the pointer 5 will be horizontally on either one side or the other of the vertical center line respectively, as indicated in Figs. 1 and 2, or referring to Fig. 1, the

pointer is shown by the dotted lines lying. horizontally on the inner side of the vertical center line, having been moved thereto by the actuation of the bridge transmitter when moving the transmitter handle to Full astern, so that all the engineer has to do is to move the reversing lever over toward the arrow point 7, which is then hanging down as indicated. Should the bridge transmitter be operated to signal Full ahead then the movement of the handle would operate the wire 8 to rotate the disk 4: to carry the pointer 5 over to lie horizontally on the outer side of the center line, when the engineer would then move the lever over toward this arrow point, which would then be in the position indicated in Fig. 2.

It will thus be seen that an indicator is provided which is always in view of the engineer to indicate positively the direction in which to move the reversing lever to carry out a given signal and without depending on the mind to carry the transmitter slgnal, so that mistakes in operation are thereby avoided.

What I claim as my invention is: An indicator of the character described comprising a rotatable body provided with a pointer normally vertical, a flexible element secured to the end of said pointer terminating in an indicator, and operating means for rotating said body to carry said pointer to horizontal positions respectively on either side of its vertical center line.

Dated at Vancouver, B. C. this 4th day of July, 1919.

JOHN MoRAE. 

